This invention relates to the art of ornamental liners which are mounted on vehicle wheels outside load-bearing portions of the wheels to make the wheels more pleasing in appearance.
Wheel liners have long been used for covering unsightly load-bearing portions of vehicle wheels. Many of these wheel liners are fastened directly to the load-bearing portions of the wheels, however, some of them are clamped onto the load-bearing portions of the wheels by means of the same lug nuts which fasten the vehicle wheels to wheel hubs.
A problem with some lug-nut mounted wheel liners is that in order to mount them it is necessary to jack-up a vehicle, or otherwise support the vehicle, to allow removal of the lug nuts. It is an object of this invention to allow a lug-nut mounted liner to be mounted on a wheel hub without requiring the vehicle to be jacked-up or otherwise supported.
Another problem with some lug-nut mounted wheel liners is that the positions of holes for air-valve stems, which have been placed in the liners to correspond with positions of air-valve stems for the wheels they are covering cannot be easily adjusted. Although the positions of these stems on wheels are usually standardized, some of the stems are not in their standard positions. When the wheel liners do not allow adjustment of the positions of the air-stem holes to lug holes it has not always been possible to mount those liners on wheels whose air-valve stems are not in their standard positions. It is an object of this invention to provide a lug-nut mounted wheel liner having an air-stem hole whose position can be adjusted relative to lug holes therein.
Yet another difficulty with many prior-art wheel liners is that they comprise a plurality of pieces which are clamped together by lug nuts. That is, these pieces must be held together until they are clamped together by the lug nuts. Mounting such multiple-piece liners is difficult for one person who must hold the various parts together, maintain a wheel on the studs and engage lug nuts with the studs, all at the same time. Thus, it is an object of this invention to provide a wheel liner which can be moved as one piece for the mounting thereof.
A further object of this invention is to provide a wheel liner which not only is convenient and easy to mount, but which is quite secure when mounted is highly durable, and is self centering.
Further, it is an object of this invention to provide a wheel liner which is relatively inexpensive to manufacture.